Abstract [en]

The steady increase of people in the labor market educated in HR-skills was the foundation of the study's central question of whether the recruiter's age, and therefore access to HR-education, would affect their attitude towards intuition when recruiting. With a survey carried out in one singular occasion the study was conducted with 50 people in various HR-departments in Sweden, all of whom worked with recruitment. The participants were asked to answer a few background questions and then asked to estimate their level of agreement with various statements, all of which measure attitude towards intuition. The study showed a strong correlation between age and the number of years spent working within the organization, in relation to the attitude towards using intuition as a tool when recruiting. However, there was no relationship between age and intuition when it was controlled for other variables. The correlation with age might also imply a correlation between education and intuition, since a younger age and shorter period of time as an employee within an organization may lead to increased likelihood that the person has education in HR. This might also lead to a more positive attitude towards intuition. These results concur with a previous study by Nordin (2015) who found that recruiters with less education were more likely to use their "gut feeling" as a tool for recruiting than were those with higher level of education.